Clown Girl - Monica Drake [97]
I said, “Jesus, should I get the cops?”
One-Night Stan quick-shifted his ice-cream truck into gear, a fast bleat of “Home on the Range,” and moseyed.
Herman’s eyes went wide. “No cops,” he hissed, still on the ground, a hand to his mouth.
“Bad piss.” The man pointed one fat finger at Herman. “You sold bad piss. Cost me my job, my girlfriend, weekends with my kid. You think that’s a joke?”
Herman, through his slack jaw, said, “Get out of here, Nita. It’s not your business.”
“Bad piss?” I said.
The guy said, “If I wanted dirty piss, I’d use my own.”
“It wasn’t dirty, man. I swear.” Herman stood up and leaned to one side, then tipped the other way, a sapling in the wind.
“Joke’s on me, asshole. Uppers, downers, foreign shit. Rehab, that’s what they say now. I’m supposed to go to rehab for drugs I don’t even know what the hell they are.”
Foreign shit? My Chinese pills, the nearly empty urine jug. I put it together.
The man said, “ Know how much that costs? More than drugs, that’s how much. More than clean piss.”
Herman rubbed his jaw.
“That’s a warning, asshole,” the guy said. “I won’t kill you this time. I’m not looking for life in prison. But mess with me again, your ass is meat.”
The man left in a cloud of soot. Chicken dealers watched from the street. The street was littered with chickens, a regular rubber slaughterhouse. I followed Herman as he staggered into the house, went right to the freezer, twisted the ice tray, and dumped ice on the countertop.
“You sold my urine?”
He put the ice in a plastic Baggie. Herman had a lot of plastic Baggies around his house. “Nita, lay off.”
I reached past him, into the fridge, grabbed my orange jug, and gave it a shake. The jug was nearly empty. Again? “You gave me a urine test. That’s what you did. You gave me a test and made yourself some cash.”
“Nita, you’re on drugs, and want to blame me for what happens?” Through his swollen jaw, behind the ice pack, he said, “Typical drug addict’s lack of accountability.”
“Herman, I was collecting that for a reason. For my health.”
“Maybe if you’d lay off the drugs, your health’d improve. Tell you, it’s the last thing I suspected, you on a bunch of shit… Listen, it doesn’t matter whose fault this was. I don’t blame you that guy almost killed me—”
“Blame me?” I said.
“—but here’s the deal: You can’t live here anymore. Find another place. I love you, Nita, but you’re bad juju. We can’t have it.”
“You sell my urine and I’m bad juju?” I had to laugh, a bitter laugh. “You’re insane. You’re right, I can’t live here.”
I went into my mudroom. “I’ll move out,” I yelled. “Right now, even.” I bundled up an armful of Rex’s costumes and shoved them in my pink vinyl prop bag on top of my balloons, the silver gun, and the makeup. I reached up into the closet and slid down the clay bust of Rex. The sock was still in place as a cork, my savings inside.
Herman was in the kitchen when I cut through. He leaned against the counter, a smoke dangling from his fat split lip. He held the ice pack to the side of his jaw. Water dripped off his elbow and puddled at his feet. “Where you goin’?” His speech was chopped by the smoke between his lips and his frozen, swollen jaw.
I said, “Like I’d tell a urine thief my new address.” I went out the side door.
He followed. My big shoes slapped the charred yard. What did I care? I kicked the ground on purpose, walked in a flurry of ash, stomped my way to the ambulance and flung open the double doors.
Herman said, “Listen, Nita. I don’t want things to end badly.”
The ambulance was hot inside after two days closed up in the sun. I knocked costumes and Goo Glue off the padded, backward-facing chair, and put the bust on the chair, as though that bust of Rex, with his sly smile, were an EMT ready to work.
Herman said, “We can do this in a good way.”
I turned around. “You steal my medical homework, clean out my urine till, and throw me out. Think that has an upside?” I started to make a bed for myself on the cot.
He leaned against the open back door,